What will you implement next year to impact student achievement and 21st century skills?
Michael Arsenault
Online HS/Curriculum Coordinator
- I plan to implement a new grading structure based on mastery rather than completion and seat-time. I hope to take out the ideas of zeros...
- Our group discussed the "Pixar Model". I need to realize that technology is great, but will never mean much without rigor, relevance, and relationships.
Mary Bauer
4th grade/MV
Create a classroom wiki which will provide an environment for my students to connect with others in and out of the classroom (using various technology tools like epals and gallery of writing. org to peer edit)
Develop lessons that will help my students become discriminating users of the internet
Treg Corrigan
5th/RC
The combination of my traveling this summer and with our IB application underway at school the question of making the global connection has really been on my mind. I would like to keep in contact with a family in France who are elementary age and are dying to practice thier English. I would also like to connect with a teacher in Berlin who teachers 5th grade as well. These could both be wonderful opportunities for my students.
Tiffanie Davis
Marise DeKlerk
7th grade LA/TMS
1. How can I rework all my existing lessons to include all the 21st century learning skills?
2. How am I going to "sell" this to my colleagues?
3. How much innovation by me will be allowed, encouraged, or even brought under consideration by my administration?
Kristin Driver
5th grade EXES
I am so excited about the fall and using 21st century skills. Last year I started using Multiple Intelligence with my students and I plan to do that more this year. I plan to start a NING with my kids, Voicethread for student lead conferences, epals for Social Studies, and I got an iPad and I want to figure out what to do with that. I am really looking forward to this year to try all these new things!
Margy Ferris
EX 2nd grade
My main plan is to implement and tweak my units that will have students thinking, working, and achieving in Quadrant D. My teammates and I have already made many changes to our units that will occur this year. Also, I am going to do several of the new learnings or ideas I learned at the conference.
Christy Fisher
LHS English
1. I plan to incorporate blogging with my novel studies for journaling and sharing of ideas and collaboration on projects.
2. I plan to learn twitter and how to use it in the classroom.
3. I plan to utilize museumbox for projects in science fiction and film class and possibly senior English.
Denise Gardiner
PCHS Computer Science
In the upcoming school year I will change my teaching practices and change the culture of my classroom to speak to 21st century learning by:
- Make Programming 1 and Programming 2 more collaborative. I will start programming contests for groups of students. Students will be divided into teams of 3, 4, or 5. I will give students a real-world programming problem. I will give it as an open-ended problem, not a prescribed assignment. Students can code the solution as a relay team of programmers. They will learn to quickly read and evaluate other students' code, and then add to it. Also I will incorporate "regular" team programming projects. Finally, I will have students evaluate and assess other students' code from standard assignments.
- I will create more of a community of learners. I will promote a culture and community of tech learners. I will develop myself more as the "charismatic adult" that facilitates learning and engages students.
Wendy Gearhart
Koryn Gosnell
Kinder/DV
Next year I plan to change my classroom most specifically by introducing a new vocabulary development interactive and collaborative project inspired by Seasame Streets "Word on the street" We will use our flip cameras to video people within our school and their thoughts on different high level vocabulary words.
I also want to write a grant for Ipods in my classroom to create yet another differentiated learning center where students can work with informed gaming tools to learn about different content area.
Rachael Greeley
Kinder/RC
- Designing planners using UBD as a way to show how teachers are already using 21st century learning skills.
- Using lesson study as a way to observe other teachers to gain new ideas and reassure that what they are doing is best/next practices.
- Showing the connection between 21st century learning skills and IB so teachers are not overwhelmed with connecting everything.
- I plan on using the problem based scenarios as a way to bring in critical thinking skills and building collaboration with the classroom to encourage the action piece of IB
Scott Grumann
8th/Science/CMS
I plan on implementing a global learning environment in each of my classes so that students help drive the purpose for their participation in class by taking on specific roles each day. Alan November defines six learning jobs-
• Tutorial Designers
• Official Scribes
• Researchers
• Global Communicators
• Learning Documentary Producers
• Solving Real Problems
I believe that I can help my students take on some of these roles next year to build purpose and autonomy. I will begin with the first two jobs, official scribes and researchers and have students rotate those jobs on a day-to-day basis and then perhaps incorporate others.
April Gudenrath
English/DCC
One goal for this year is to go entirely paperless and use technology as a tool to encourage learning.
Another goal is to learn about new technologies and then collaborate with other educators on how to use it in the classroom.
Birgitta Gustafson
8th LA/CMS
I intend to incorporate inquiry based learning into my everyday practice in the classroom. I want to give my students the opportunity to think about, discuss, and write about their ideas relating to big questions: what makes an ideal society? for instance.
Christa Herring
Academic Support/PH
For this year, I am going to make sure that my students(my students are parents, teachers, and the kids) are truly engaged in lessons. I will do this by making connections with students. I feel very strongly after attending Model Schools that if we as teachers focus on engaging students and truly connecting (finding their passions, knowing them as people) with them that the relevance and rigor that we all strive for will follow.
Diane Hibbert
3rd grade/EX
I have already begun the slow process of becoming much better informed on what 21st century learning skills look like at the third grade level. I am building a "new box" that has "best practices" that are tried and true AND I am researching "next practices" that will guide me towards more fluidity in the use of 21st century skills.
Can we look at 21st century skills content standards?
The new Colorado Standards have included 21st century learning skills.
I plan to specifically make a bulletin board that will focus on 21st century learning skills projects that my students will participate in throughout the year.
Danielle Horner
Dinah Kress
Laura Laycock
6th CMS/Science & Reading
1) Intentionally build relationships with students to:
2) Make learning relevant individually
3) Have students share work on the classroom moodle. Intentionally teach positive constructive commenting.
4) Incorporate global current events to add relevance to earth science topics.
5) Less work, more mastery through repeated practice as needed
Jon Lenig
LHS Science
My focus this year will be on mastery learning:
Build releationships with students
Know what students know and don't know
Help students figure out how they learn/understand best
Change my role in the classroom
Take students as far as I can irregardless of where they start
Heather Lindquist
4th Grade MV
Goals for the next year: Use formative assessments to drive instruction/planning; plan more strategically for flexible grouping; increase student autonomy; build scaffolding in early in the year to help students take ownership...(more to follow!)
NEXT YEAR two specific things I want to do are...spend time at the beginning of the year explicitly teaching students how to evaluate information they access on the internet using the tasks suggested on the allaboutexplorers.com website. Also, I am going to use a claymation/digital storytelling program (such as Frames) to engage students collaboratively in a meaningful project that will provide them the opportunity to create/invent.
Sona Loomis
LHS/English
From Day One - What will be different?
General
*an emphasis on mentoring, collaboration, critical thinking
*moving into the D quadrant
*publishing for a global audience
*mastery learning?????
Specific
*using Mixed In for collaborative writing projects
*student products (videos, audio clips, poetry & Shakesparee remixes, blogs, global publications)
*games???
*using the Ning (LHS Writing Center) and peer editing in Turnitin
*Collabortive editing
*Communicating with experts
Becky MacDonald
Kinder/EX
I plan to use a blog for my classroom to keep the parents informed, but more for student participation, sharing and learning...I want the kinders to take pictures of 'something that is red' or 'something that begins with /b/' or 'something that looks like a circle', etc. and post it to the blog. I want to use "vocaroo" each day and let a couple students talk about what they learned and post that to the blog for families. I want the kinders to invite grandparents to participate on our blog (the beginnings of going global?). I HOPE to skype with those grandparents (think it might be easier to get internet approval with family) to ask them questions when we talk about families or other topics or themes to have them interact with the class and share experiences, etc. I am also hoping to contact other schools to share experiences and ideas and maybe even work together on a "scenario" =) How fun to use this tools to explore the world!
Phil McIntosh
CMS/Math
What will I do differently next year based on my work so far with the 21st Century Learning Cadre?
(1) Further implement mastery learning in 7th grade mathematics
(2) Change grading system to eliminate doing things for "credit." Assessment of mastery of the required skills and knowledge will be done with formative assessment and quizzes. This will be the only source of material for "grades."
(3) Still require bellwork (warm up) but not for a grade. Learners will show me there work or feedback but will not even have to turn in it. I may record their success or effort (or lack) but it will not figure in the grade calculation. Same with investigations and other assignments.
(4) All manipulatives and support materials (pattern blocks, dice, construction paper, tangrams, unit cubes, rulers, protractors, etc) will be out and available at all times for students to use if they want to. No permission required.
(5) Students work autonomously in self-selected groups on investigations and assignments designed to "teach" the skills targeted. Not all groups will be working on the same thing and individuals cannot go on to the next topic until they demonstrate to me (formative assessment, quizzes) that they have met the objectives.
(6) I have out figured it out yet, but I hope to implement some kind of global community, project-based assessments as well. I'm looking at and thinking about the Grand Engineering Challenges for ideas.
Darlene McPherson
3rd/RC
Things to put into practice
1. Designing planners with the Ubd framework while embedding multiple disciplines.
2. Using problem based learning and gaming to help increase student understanding and motivation.
3. Work smarter not harder and put learning in the hands of the students. Self direction
Rachel Miller
DV/2nd grade
This year I plan to implement two key tools that will help facilitate 21st century learning:
1. Instead of having students write letters in a journal to their parents on a weekly basis, my students will blog about their learning. Parents and students will be able to dialogue through comments. Students will be able to upload audio, video, or sample work that demonstrates their learning.
2. Instead of just progress monitoring fluency, my students will use Audacity to record themselves as they read a passage. They will be able to replay and rerecord their reading. I can use this as evidence for RtI and conferences.
I'm sure that as the year progresses I will develop more projects and ideas.
Mary Montero
3rd/RC
Goals for 2010-2011
The main thing that I will change this year is incorporating 21st century skills into our IB planners. We did one planner last year with a scenario for problem-based learning, but this year, I would like to have one or two (at minimum) in each IB planner to incorporate collaboration, critical thinking, self direction, and invention.
Susan Murray
PCHS/German
From Day 1 and beyond I hope ...
1. to read and become more proficient in the rigor, relevance, and relationships framework, instructional strategies, and evaluative strategies.
2. to explore, experiment, and implement instructional and evaluative strategies related rigor, relevance, and relationships.
3. to bring this framework together with our new State Standards and use it as a tool in the classroom.
4. to use the collaborative classroom rubric/evaluation as a self-evaluation tool.
5. to define what Quadrant D means at each level in the classroom.
6. to bring the 3 Rs together with RtI.
7. to bring the concepts of relationships into the classroom as part of the instructional environment. This includes gender differences.
8. to reserve the right to amend these goals as my learning and experience dictate.
Amy Murrell
TMS/Technology
Amy's Goals for the 2010-2011 School Year
Modify and update curriculum to reflect the Rigor/Relevance Framework and 21st century skills.
Use Understanding by Design for lesson/unit planning.
Be as paperless as possible.
Use ALEC thoroughly and effectively.
Lead TMS in 21st Century Professional Development.
Model best and next practices in and out of the classroom.
Dave Nelson
Fourth Gr.
I will be using the fourth grade xeriscape garden to implement the skills that I will teach to keep the students working in Quadrant D. I wiIl also focus personal relationships with my students by being conscience of the converstations I have with my kids.
Becky Pantano
4th/5th PH
am implementing a wiki. Along with that there is a year long research project, “What is your passion?” assigned to each student. Modeling of many of the Web 2.0 tools on the wiki and in the class throughout the year to be used as resources, presentation purposes and even use on the wiki.
I am very excited about making a glog on the wiki and having the wiki be interactive with assignments on the wiki. Students will be going there to complete things. However I really like what I heard in our small group just now and I will remember that "Try 3 new things, 1 will be great, 1 will need some modification and 1 will fail and that's okay the students need to see that.
Becki Pedersen
2nd/MV
I think for this upcoming year I am going to try to have my students collaborate more and engage in more higher level thinking activites. I would like to incorporate my digital cameras from the start of the year, rather than the middle of the year, with my students and using the photos in Photostory projects. One new website I learned about was
tech4learning frames.com. It is kind of like photostory but allows for more diversity and creativity. I would like to explore this website more on my own first then possible use it in addition to or with Photostory.
Jenny Perreault
Tony Pimental
8th/Social Studies/TMS
Michael Pollard
PCHS/Technology
Deliberately making 21st-Century Learners: I am currently in the process of reviewing my curriculum content and instructional methods to follow UbD principles. I will start each unit by reviewing the objectives -- the real skill-based goals -- with the students to give them understanding of why we're doing what we're doing. I'm tired of getting to the end of a unit and thinking "That exercise didn't really do teach my kids what I was hoping it would."
Susan Rangel
Lynette Ryan
DCC/English
Goal: transition students to online learning and submission of assignments (paperless).
Angela Salazar
Spanish/PH
For the 2010-2011 year I plan to use a blog to communicate better with my students and their parents. I will try three new things, as per a colleague, and at least perfect one.
My plan is to use the Journey North with 2nd grade to bump up their unit. I plan to work with the library, as well as the Art teacher.
The bigger plan is to be able to Skype with other classrooms in other countries.
Christine Schein
Tech Strand Coordinator
Leni Schlieper
Kinder/MV
I plan to incorporate blogs in my classroom to make some of our activities more "real" and reachable by a larger (classroom community)
I need to rethink how to use the tools I have to their greatest impact and potential.
Nancy Spalding
DCC/Technology
Great Gaming ideas from Mr. White.....
Once again, I feel like we have some AWESOME choices, but TOO MANY.
I will have to pick 3 things to do first.
Then 3 more things to do.
Etc.
ETc.
Don Spano
7th grade Social Studies/CMS
Gender Differences: Complete PD study of gender differences and begin incorporating strategies in current/future units and lessons
Relationships: develop questionnaire for each student to include: likes/dislikes; what comes easily/hard; extracurricular hobbies/sports/activities; long term goal (college, vocation, and how to get there"
Assessing 21st Century skills: update expectations and rubric from last year on assessing 21st century skills; in grade book, separate "content" and "skills" (50/50, 60/40 split, decide)
Critical Thinking & Reasoning (Quadrant D): Review professional material/books/ online information (to include responsibility on CADRE) and begin developing curriculum (units/lessons) for 2011-2012 school year which integrates Quad D strategies, rigor, and relevance (begin evaluating possible standards based assessments/grading)
Rhonda Spradling
Renee Sward
Barb Voget
4th/MV
Things to implement in classrooms for next year:
mirror neurons - more modeling
wikis for literature circles - kids contribute sections
more/less chart for what should be seen in the classrooms - share also with staff
year long or semester long project where kids are experts...they have choices with how to present
Phil Williams
4th/PH
For the up and coming school year, I am going to focus on the Rigor and Relevance framework. I have taken the Reading, Writing, Math, and Soc. Studies tools we currently use and rewritten a scope and sequence for the entire year integrating more relevance using real world application. The scope and sequence is much more linear with concepts taught and integrates Reading, Writing, Math, and Soc. Studies, allowing students to easily make connections.
Karen Winfield
LHS/Art
Implementation of ideas for school year
Collaboration time each class when work is in progress--think of a catchy name! Spend 5 minutes giving feedback to those at your table--kudos, suggestions, constructive criticism, questions about next steps,etc.
Use blog for AP students to do the same thing. Once a week look at in class briefly. Students
Post current and/or finished work. Students are also required to post at least two comments on other students' work. After finishing a piece, students should post a critique about that piece.
- Our group discussed the "Pixar Model". I need to realize that technology is great, but will never mean much without rigor, relevance, and relationships.
Develop lessons that will help my students become discriminating users of the internet
2. How am I going to "sell" this to my colleagues?
3. How much innovation by me will be allowed, encouraged, or even brought under consideration by my administration?
2. I plan to learn twitter and how to use it in the classroom.
3. I plan to utilize museumbox for projects in science fiction and film class and possibly senior English.
- Make Programming 1 and Programming 2 more collaborative. I will start programming contests for groups of students. Students will be divided into teams of 3, 4, or 5. I will give students a real-world programming problem. I will give it as an open-ended problem, not a prescribed assignment. Students can code the solution as a relay team of programmers. They will learn to quickly read and evaluate other students' code, and then add to it. Also I will incorporate "regular" team programming projects. Finally, I will have students evaluate and assess other students' code from standard assignments.
- I will create more of a community of learners. I will promote a culture and community of tech learners. I will develop myself more as the "charismatic adult" that facilitates learning and engages students.
I also want to write a grant for Ipods in my classroom to create yet another differentiated learning center where students can work with informed gaming tools to learn about different content area.
- Using lesson study as a way to observe other teachers to gain new ideas and reassure that what they are doing is best/next practices.
- Showing the connection between 21st century learning skills and IB so teachers are not overwhelmed with connecting everything.
- I plan on using the problem based scenarios as a way to bring in critical thinking skills and building collaboration with the classroom to encourage the action piece of IB
• Tutorial Designers
• Official Scribes
• Researchers
• Global Communicators
• Learning Documentary Producers
• Solving Real Problems
I believe that I can help my students take on some of these roles next year to build purpose and autonomy. I will begin with the first two jobs, official scribes and researchers and have students rotate those jobs on a day-to-day basis and then perhaps incorporate others.
Another goal is to learn about new technologies and then collaborate with other educators on how to use it in the classroom.
Can we look at 21st century skills content standards?
The new Colorado Standards have included 21st century learning skills.
I plan to specifically make a bulletin board that will focus on 21st century learning skills projects that my students will participate in throughout the year.
2) Make learning relevant individually
3) Have students share work on the classroom moodle. Intentionally teach positive constructive commenting.
4) Incorporate global current events to add relevance to earth science topics.
5) Less work, more mastery through repeated practice as needed
Build releationships with students
Know what students know and don't know
Help students figure out how they learn/understand best
Change my role in the classroom
Take students as far as I can irregardless of where they start
NEXT YEAR two specific things I want to do are...spend time at the beginning of the year explicitly teaching students how to evaluate information they access on the internet using the tasks suggested on the allaboutexplorers.com website. Also, I am going to use a claymation/digital storytelling program (such as Frames) to engage students collaboratively in a meaningful project that will provide them the opportunity to create/invent.
General
*an emphasis on mentoring, collaboration, critical thinking
*moving into the D quadrant
*publishing for a global audience
*mastery learning?????
Specific
*using Mixed In for collaborative writing projects
*student products (videos, audio clips, poetry & Shakesparee remixes, blogs, global publications)
*games???
*using the Ning (LHS Writing Center) and peer editing in Turnitin
*Collabortive editing
*Communicating with experts
(1) Further implement mastery learning in 7th grade mathematics
(2) Change grading system to eliminate doing things for "credit." Assessment of mastery of the required skills and knowledge will be done with formative assessment and quizzes. This will be the only source of material for "grades."
(3) Still require bellwork (warm up) but not for a grade. Learners will show me there work or feedback but will not even have to turn in it. I may record their success or effort (or lack) but it will not figure in the grade calculation. Same with investigations and other assignments.
(4) All manipulatives and support materials (pattern blocks, dice, construction paper, tangrams, unit cubes, rulers, protractors, etc) will be out and available at all times for students to use if they want to. No permission required.
(5) Students work autonomously in self-selected groups on investigations and assignments designed to "teach" the skills targeted. Not all groups will be working on the same thing and individuals cannot go on to the next topic until they demonstrate to me (formative assessment, quizzes) that they have met the objectives.
(6) I have out figured it out yet, but I hope to implement some kind of global community, project-based assessments as well. I'm looking at and thinking about the Grand Engineering Challenges for ideas.
1. Designing planners with the Ubd framework while embedding multiple disciplines.
2. Using problem based learning and gaming to help increase student understanding and motivation.
3. Work smarter not harder and put learning in the hands of the students. Self direction
1. Instead of having students write letters in a journal to their parents on a weekly basis, my students will blog about their learning. Parents and students will be able to dialogue through comments. Students will be able to upload audio, video, or sample work that demonstrates their learning.
2. Instead of just progress monitoring fluency, my students will use Audacity to record themselves as they read a passage. They will be able to replay and rerecord their reading. I can use this as evidence for RtI and conferences.
I'm sure that as the year progresses I will develop more projects and ideas.
The main thing that I will change this year is incorporating 21st century skills into our IB planners. We did one planner last year with a scenario for problem-based learning, but this year, I would like to have one or two (at minimum) in each IB planner to incorporate collaboration, critical thinking, self direction, and invention.
1. to read and become more proficient in the rigor, relevance, and relationships framework, instructional strategies, and evaluative strategies.
2. to explore, experiment, and implement instructional and evaluative strategies related rigor, relevance, and relationships.
3. to bring this framework together with our new State Standards and use it as a tool in the classroom.
4. to use the collaborative classroom rubric/evaluation as a self-evaluation tool.
5. to define what Quadrant D means at each level in the classroom.
6. to bring the 3 Rs together with RtI.
7. to bring the concepts of relationships into the classroom as part of the instructional environment. This includes gender differences.
8. to reserve the right to amend these goals as my learning and experience dictate.
Modify and update curriculum to reflect the Rigor/Relevance Framework and 21st century skills.
Use Understanding by Design for lesson/unit planning.
Be as paperless as possible.
Use ALEC thoroughly and effectively.
Lead TMS in 21st Century Professional Development.
Model best and next practices in and out of the classroom.
I am very excited about making a glog on the wiki and having the wiki be interactive with assignments on the wiki. Students will be going there to complete things. However I really like what I heard in our small group just now and I will remember that "Try 3 new things, 1 will be great, 1 will need some modification and 1 will fail and that's okay the students need to see that.
tech4learning frames.com. It is kind of like photostory but allows for more diversity and creativity. I would like to explore this website more on my own first then possible use it in addition to or with Photostory.
My plan is to use the Journey North with 2nd grade to bump up their unit. I plan to work with the library, as well as the Art teacher.
The bigger plan is to be able to Skype with other classrooms in other countries.
I need to rethink how to use the tools I have to their greatest impact and potential.
Once again, I feel like we have some AWESOME choices, but TOO MANY.
I will have to pick 3 things to do first.
Then 3 more things to do.
Etc.
ETc.
Relationships: develop questionnaire for each student to include: likes/dislikes; what comes easily/hard; extracurricular hobbies/sports/activities; long term goal (college, vocation, and how to get there"
Assessing 21st Century skills: update expectations and rubric from last year on assessing 21st century skills; in grade book, separate "content" and "skills" (50/50, 60/40 split, decide)
Critical Thinking & Reasoning (Quadrant D): Review professional material/books/ online information (to include responsibility on CADRE) and begin developing curriculum (units/lessons) for 2011-2012 school year which integrates Quad D strategies, rigor, and relevance (begin evaluating possible standards based assessments/grading)
mirror neurons - more modeling
wikis for literature circles - kids contribute sections
more/less chart for what should be seen in the classrooms - share also with staff
year long or semester long project where kids are experts...they have choices with how to present
Collaboration time each class when work is in progress--think of a catchy name! Spend 5 minutes giving feedback to those at your table--kudos, suggestions, constructive criticism, questions about next steps,etc.
Use blog for AP students to do the same thing. Once a week look at in class briefly. Students
Post current and/or finished work. Students are also required to post at least two comments on other students' work. After finishing a piece, students should post a critique about that piece.